Curating Under Pressure

Janet Marstine is Honorary Associate Professor (retired) at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK. She writes and consults on diverse aspects of museum ethics with a particular interest in supporting the agency of practitioners to make informed ethical decisions. She sat on the Ethics Committee of the UK’s Museums Association from 2014 to 2019, helping to move their approach from one of policing to empowering. Svetlana Mintcheva is the director of programs at the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), an alliance of US national non-profit organizations. She is the founding director of NCAC’s Arts Advocacy Program, a 20-year-old unique national initiative devoted to the arts and free expression. Dr. Mintcheva frequently speaks and writes on emerging trends in censorship.

Part 1: Understanding self-censorship; 1 Rethinking the curator’s remit; 2 Much ado about nothing: policing of controversial art in the UK; 3 Curating contemporary global art in Doha, Qatar: anticipated "conversations," undesirable controversies and state self-censorship; 4 No names, no titles, no further explanations; 5 Lady disrupted: self-censorship and the processes of feminist curating in South Africa; 6 Bishan project: efforts to build a utopian community under authoritarian rule; Part 2: Negotiating self-censorship; 7 Navigating censorship: a case from Palestine; 8 Truth or dare? Curatorial practice and artistic freedom of expression in Turkey; 9 The complexity of taking curatorial risks: case studies from East Asia; 10 Negotiating self-censorship in the representation of Colombian armed conflict; 11 Experimental curatorship in Russia: beyond contemporary art institutions; 12 From Carbon Sink to WASTE LAND: a case study in navigating controversy; 13 The bigger picture: rethinking curatorial approaches to photographs of childhood; 14 Smart tactics: towards an adaptive curatorial practice